Do you ever wonder if there was a different way to view really thriving and living? When a roar happens in life there are normal fight, flight, freeze and appease reactions but what would happen if we ran toward the roar instead of merely reacting?
Run Toward the Roar reframes thriving and resilience to find and focus on what you love so that you will be faithful and loyal regardless of the roars that cross your path.
Whether it is encouraging your team, or self-leadership RTTR is a practical, and applicable approach to influencing, and encouraging people to thrive.
This podcast is based on the Amazon best seller "Run Toward the Roar: Transform Crisis and Change into the Opportunity to Thrive".
Practice Over Promises: Why Everyday Moments Are the Rehearsal
When my granddaughter's 50 cent rubber fish got stuck 20 feet up a tree, the easy answer was sitting right there. "We'll get you a new one." It was reasonable, it would have solved the problem, and it was a promise dressed up as a solution.
This episode is about practice over promises. Leaders rarely break promises on purpose. We say "next quarter," "when the budget frees up," and "when things settle down," and we mean every word. But a decision with no practice behind it drifts toward someday, and your people notice. I share what happened with a rake and a kayak paddle, a construction team whose decision came apart a week after the meeting, and a two-question coaching practice that changed how one supervisor's crew made decisions.
In this episode
Why "I told you so" and "we'll get you a new one" were the easy answers, and why I didn't give them
Grandma on my shoulders, a steel rake, and most of a roll of painter's tape
How a promise gets dressed up as a solution, and why the people making it usually mean it
"Next quarter," "when the budget frees up," "when things settle down": the phrases that leave the fish in the tree
The construction team that agreed on a plan in the room and tried to undo it a week later
The supervisor's line: "If we don't stand by what we said in the room, there's no point in having the conversation"
Two coaching questions: what are our options, and which one honours our core values?
How 15-minute asks became five-minute conversations, then updates, then "we're already on it"
Practice is a decision made before the moment requires it
Small practices that count: showing up two minutes early and fixing one broken step this week
The question to sit with this month: where in your leadership are you giving people a promise when what they actually need is a practice?
If a confidential thinking partner would help, I'd be honoured to serve you. Book a no-pitch virtual coffee at fortlog.co.
Leadering is the everyday practice. Practise well.
5 Oct 2026
Ready or Not: Why You Can't Choose Your Values in a Crisis
Every organization has its values pep rally. The slide goes up, everyone celebrates, and then the values go back on the wall until next year. John Robertson has spent 30 years watching what happens next, in the moments those values are actually tested. His conclusion is uncomfortable and freeing at the same time. You cannot choose your values in a crisis. There is no time to consult them. Whatever is already rooted is what comes out.
In this episode John takes apart the quiet consent clause most of us have signed into our own leadership, the one that says these are our values, except under real pressure. He explains why leaders get caught flat-footed, why a crisis does not actually reveal character, and how our compromises learn to wear a virtue mask. Then he offers two pictures that change how you think about rooting your values, the sequoia and the oak, and names the one stage of growth most leaders skip.
In this episode:
Why nobody sends a memo warning you that today is the day your values get tested
The consent clause hidden in most core values, and the wedding vow that exposes it
What "caught flat-footed" really costs a leader
The pep rally that went silent, and the one leader who turned it into the best moment in the room
Why character is revealed in the small unwatched moments, not the crisis
How loyalty, grace, and pragmatism get used as masks for compromise
The sequoia and why you cannot stand in the storm alone
Sapling, adolescence, and oak: the three stages of a leader's values
What being constant, utterly predictable, actually looks like
You cannot choose your values in a crisis. Choose them in the calm.
If a confidential thinking partner would help you do this work before you need it, book a no-pitch virtual coffee at fortlog.co.
31 Aug 2026
Busy Isn't Yours. It's Borrowed.
We start September like we never took a break. The summer had no routine, and then the fall arrives and it is full speed ahead, as if the whole calendar is a performance review we have to pass.
This episode is about giving yourself permission to choose clarity before activity. Because busy became a badge of honour somewhere along the line, and a badge is a strange thing to wear for work you never chose. Busyness gets mistaken for progress. A hamster on a treadmill is busy too.
The heart of it is one question. Not a system, not a worksheet, not another program. When you look at your calendar, ask: is this mine, or is this borrowed? If it is genuinely yours, connected to your values, your responsibility, and your passion, then own it fully. If it landed on your plate because it was easier for someone else to set it down there, that is not an automatic yes.
In this episode
▸ Why busy is an apology and a boast in the same sentence
▸ Busy as a yoke, not a badge, and what a yoke actually does to a person
▸ The office administrator whose plate kept filling, and the five-of-seven conversation that changed it
▸ Why exhaustion is not the same as authorship
▸ The borrowed test you can run in real time, with no worksheet required
▸ How to speak the truth in love when something isn't yours to carry
▸ Why focus, not a shorter calendar, is what restores effectiveness
Don't settle for busy. Choose what's yours to carry.
If a confidential thinking partner would help you sort what's yours from what's borrowed, book a no-pitch virtual coffee at fortlog.co.
Busy isn't yours. It's borrowed.
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Questions about Run Toward The Roar
Who hosts Run Toward The Roar?
John Robertson host the show. Published by John Robertson.
How often do new episodes come out?
The show publishes monthly, based on its RSS feed.
Does Run Toward The Roar take guests?
Yes. Guests have been identified in episode analyses.
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